Each book in Veronica Roth's series, Divergent, Insurgent, and Allegiant, is spellbinding. I read all three in five days. I enjoyed the complexity of the social and political systems - also the complexity of the characters. No one was pure good-guy or fully bad-guy.
Reading so fast, I only managed one quote on page 100 in Allegiant:
Take a person's memories, and you change who they are.
There were lots of interesting treatments on so many real world and complex issues. I wonder if my attention on memories is due somewhat to the last book I read.
Having the last book alternate in Tris' and Tobias' point of view through me at first, since it was different from the first two books. There had to be a reason. I sure was unhappy about that reason, but it made the author's decision make sense in the end.
I haven't seen the movie yet. How does it compare to the book?
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Memory Wall
When I started reading Memory Wall, by Anthony Doerr, I found myself recoiling a little. It was the content: the first story is about a woman with dementia who keeps notes to herself all over her wall. Too close to home perhaps; I hate it when I can't remember things. But I kept reading and I'm so glad I did! It took some surprising twists and was amazing and thought provoking. Every story in this collection of shorts is different and beautiful. I love the way memory or memories is dealt with in such different ways, often other-worldly.
From "Memory":
Page 2: Alma stands barefoot and wigless in the upstairs bedroom with a flashlight.
Page 42: "To say a person is a happy person or an unhappy person is ridiculous. We are a thousand different kinds of people every hour." (says Alma)
Page 70: What is memory anyway? How can it be such a frail, perishable thing?
From "Village 113":
Page 151: But perhaps, she thinks, there is no good and bad to it at all. Every memory everone has ever had will eventually be under water. Progress is a storm and the wings of everything are swept up in it.
From "The River Nemunas":
Page 175: I wonder about how the sky can be a huge, blue nothingness and at the same time it can also feel like a shelter.
From "Afterworld":
Page 192: She sits up too quickly and her eyesight flees in long streaks.
From "Memory":
Page 2: Alma stands barefoot and wigless in the upstairs bedroom with a flashlight.
Page 42: "To say a person is a happy person or an unhappy person is ridiculous. We are a thousand different kinds of people every hour." (says Alma)
Page 70: What is memory anyway? How can it be such a frail, perishable thing?
From "Village 113":
Page 151: But perhaps, she thinks, there is no good and bad to it at all. Every memory everone has ever had will eventually be under water. Progress is a storm and the wings of everything are swept up in it.
From "The River Nemunas":
Page 175: I wonder about how the sky can be a huge, blue nothingness and at the same time it can also feel like a shelter.
From "Afterworld":
Page 192: She sits up too quickly and her eyesight flees in long streaks.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Boy's Life
Another book I picked up from subbing high school English: Robert McCammon's Boy's Life. The story drew me in and carried me along; a quick read in over 600 pages. It's all about keeping the magic. I'm gonna make my kids read it - I don't think it will take much convincing.
Page 2: We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out and combed out.
Page 8: My blue jeans had patches on the knees, like badges of courage marking encounters with barbed wire and gravel.
Page 16-17: Underwater, he fought the lake's muscles. The car fell away beneath him, and as his legs thrashed for a hold in the liquid tomb, more bubbles rushed up and broke him loose and he climbed up their silver staircase toward the attic of air.
Page 23: If his nose had been any larger, he would've made a dandy weathervane.
Page 64: The place looked and felt like a hothouse where exotic hats had bloomed.
Page 177: I swallowed my rage like a bitter seed, not knowing that it would bear fruit.
Page 332: Everything seemed to be gleaming and glinting, and our feet were cushioned by gardens of Oriental weave.
Page 486: It seemed to me, as I walked in the presence of all those stilled voices that would never be heard again, that we were a wasteful breed. We had thrown away the past and our future was impoverished for it.
Ah, yes. You must read this book.
Page 2: We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out and combed out.
Page 8: My blue jeans had patches on the knees, like badges of courage marking encounters with barbed wire and gravel.
Page 16-17: Underwater, he fought the lake's muscles. The car fell away beneath him, and as his legs thrashed for a hold in the liquid tomb, more bubbles rushed up and broke him loose and he climbed up their silver staircase toward the attic of air.
Page 23: If his nose had been any larger, he would've made a dandy weathervane.
Page 64: The place looked and felt like a hothouse where exotic hats had bloomed.
Page 177: I swallowed my rage like a bitter seed, not knowing that it would bear fruit.
Page 332: Everything seemed to be gleaming and glinting, and our feet were cushioned by gardens of Oriental weave.
Page 486: It seemed to me, as I walked in the presence of all those stilled voices that would never be heard again, that we were a wasteful breed. We had thrown away the past and our future was impoverished for it.
Ah, yes. You must read this book.
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